Brazil to open long-distance hiking trail in Atlantic forest – in pictures

Inspired by long-distance tracks such as Canada’s 15,000-mile Great Trail, a proposed 4,970-mile trans-Brazil hiking trail would provide a continuous coastal corridor from its southern border with Uruguay to its northern frontier with French Guiana

Ian Cheibub/AFP/Getty Images

Main image:
Hikers on part of the projected trail.
Photograph: Ian Cheibub/AFP/Getty Images

Mon 19 Aug 2019 02.00 EDT

Walkers share water along a hiking trail – part of the projected 4,970-mile (8,000km) route across Brazil, which will be one of the longest in the Americas

A woman walks along the hiking trail. Ranked by WWF as the second most diverse ecosystem on the planet after the Amazon, the Atlantic forest – or
Mata Atlântica in Portuguese – teems with thousands of plant and animal species.

The Christ the Redeemer statue and
Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain) are seen from the trail. Work is already under way on the trail, which has the backing of Brazil’s environment and tourism ministries, but it could take years to complete.

In the 16th century, the Atlantic forest covered more than 502,000 sq miles. Since then, however, nearly 90% of it has disappeared to make way for coffee plantations, sugarcane fields, mining, cattle grazing or cities.

While the rate of deforestation has slowed in recent years, according to SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation, there are fears that the anti-environment rhetoric of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, will reverse that trend.